Dirty dining reports are becoming quite popular with local news stations all around the country and are grossing out America at the same time. I’m sure you’ve seen it before; local reporters go into the kitchens of restaurants to see what health code violations they can find. I’ll spare you the gory details, but it’s usually one more reason I prefer to cook my meals at home.

Fat, sugar and salt; the triple threat found in fast food, restaurant food, packaged food, frozen food, and even some foods we prepare ourselves. Our taste buds are so accustomed to the taste and feel of this combo, that we forget what real food is supposed to taste like. So with the New Year hovering just around the corner, how about some retraining of the old taste buds? Sounds good? Great!

The holiday season is a very stressful time of year for all of us. When we allow this stress to take over our lives, we put our families in danger. A fire at any time of year is like a death in a family. We have to protect our families. We all pride ourselves in being safe, but I want you to look hard at some of our holiday habits.

Why do we let unexpected problems with weather, electricity, and other little things, throw our routines in the trash?

I can tell you, it is not a perfect world. One little thing out of whack throws a monkey wrench into our plan. Winter is almost here; with this season, comes snow, school closings, ice storms and power outages. Are you prepared with plan B?

Popeye sang it best “I’m strong to the finich ’cause I eats me spinach.” Ok, so Swiss chard isn’t spinach but it is a leafy green vegetable similar to spinach. And it provides a variety of health benefits that include making you strong like Popeye.

Do you ever feel like you are drowning and going down for the last time and no one is there to save you? In fact, the whirlpool is about to suck you into the dark abyss. This is how all of us feel when we are living in CHAOS! The whirlpool is the vicious cycle in which we are living and we don’t know how to stop it! You can’t even remember how you got into the dangerous waters in the first place!

Every year we swear to ourselves that this Christmas is going to be different and every year we find ourselves wrapping presents as we walk out the door. Why do we allow our procrastination to play havoc with our lives year after year? I want to help you cruise through this holiday season with FLYING colors!

Too much of a good thing is never a good thing. This rings true when it comes to what we eat and especially true when it comes to corn. Our diets are inundated with it and the biggest offender is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). In fact, the word on the streets about this stuff is so bad they’re trying to change their name to ‘corn sugar’ We're not fooled though are we?